


Loving Is to Suffer

by orphan_account



Category: Versailles no Bara | Rose of Versailles
Genre: Alternate History, Crossdressing, French Revolution, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 03:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5569099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A chance meeting introduces Girodelle to Saint-Just, and he is captivated not only by the young revolutionary’s ideals but also by his beauty.  However, the convictions of both men are tested when Saint-Just involves Girodelle in a murderous plot he’s engineering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Saint-Just in this story is most definitely the fictional version from the anime, not the real-life one or the manga version! I’ve disregarded historical accuracy in places to fit into the Rose of Versailles universe, particularly its time line, which places Saint-Just in the Revolution far earlier than he was actually involved. However, I have added some details about the real Saint-Just’s life, such as Louise and his family, to flesh out his extremely one-sided anime character.
> 
> The majority of the first chapter takes place on the night of the ball for Oscar’s suitors in episode 30; the chapter’s end takes place during episode 35.

After Lady Oscar’s scandalous appearance in uniform, General Bouille’s ball did not last long.  Girodelle was the first guest to leave, and thirty minutes later he was in a carriage headed towards Paris, still chuckling ruefully from time to time when he thought about how Oscar had made fools of them all.

The habit of making secret visits to Paris was Girodelle’s only hidden vice—and it was hidden indeed.  When he grew frustrated with life among the nobility, he enjoyed leaving his carriage outside the city gates and wandering the streets disguised as a commoner, an ordinary citizen of the Third Estate.  It was Girodelle’s only escape from the privileges, both real and dubious, of nobility, and he did not allow himself to indulge often.  Tonight, however, he believed he had earned it.

That evening, Girodelle found respite from his humiliation in a small, noisy tavern.  He sat at the bar next to a man who looked far too young to be there, and ordered a drink which he didn’t even touch.  Instead, Girodelle tried to lose his thoughts in the conversations of the people around him, but he had difficulty in following them.  Only disjointed bits and pieces reached his ears, and they formed an odd, nonsensical pastiche of mostly drunken ramblings he couldn’t comprehend.

“Not thirsty?” the elderly barkeep asked as he trudged by, prodding at Girodelle’s glass.  “Drink up.  You look like you need it.”  Girodelle took an obligatory sip of the coarse liquor, hoping the barkeep would move on, but the old man leaned on the bar in front of him.

“What’s on your mind?” the barkeep asked him.

“Nothing.”  Girodelle glanced at the young man beside him, hoping for some kind of help in avoiding conversation, but he got only a smirk in response.

“It’s a woman, isn’t it?” the barkeep persisted.  Girodelle turned back to him and stifled a sigh.

“Yes,” Girodelle admitted, hoping a full confession would satisfy the old man.  “A woman.  I asked her to marry me, and she refused.”  The barkeep nodded in a way that implied he had heard such tales a million times before.

“She prefers someone else, eh?”

Girodelle tried not to scowl.  He resented the familiarity with which the barkeep was treating him, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.  He certainly couldn’t afford to start any fights, not there.

“I suppose so,” he finally answered.

The barkeep chuckled, “There’s always _someone_ else.  There’ll be another one for you too.”  He ambled on to torture another patron, and Girodelle felt at least some of the tension relax from his body.  However, it immediately returned when he heard a scoff from the young man beside him.

“Hmph.  What is the loss of a woman compared to our rights as men?”

“Apparently, you have never been in love with one,” Girodelle muttered, but his neighbor just laughed and sipped at his drink.  Girodelle took the chance to study him: dark blond hair that fell to his shoulders, narrow brown eyes, long straight nose.

 _He looks so young,_ Girodelle thought.  _He’s beautiful. . . ._   The thought embarrassed Girodelle, and he dragged his eyes from the man’s face to apprise his clothing instead.  He was dressed in a sky-blue coat with an immaculate cravat.  Not pure rabble then, though of course not noble.  Unless, like Girodelle, he was in disguise. . . .

Girodelle’s thoughts were cut short when the handsome young man glanced at him and raised an almost delicate eyebrow.

“Yes, citizen?” he prompted.  “You are staring at me.”  Girodelle felt his face flush with heat as he turned away.

“My apologies,” he murmured.  “You look a bit familiar to me, and I thought perhaps I knew you.  But I was mistaken.”

“Ah,” the man said with a shrug.  “No, I do not think you would know me—not yet, anyway.”

“Not yet?”  Girodelle felt as irritated with the man as he had with the barkeep—such arrogance!—yet the blond intrigued him as well.  Who was he, well-dressed and beautiful and so young?  And why was he in a place like this?

Once again, the man laughed, though his face retained a sort of coldness.  He reminded Girodelle of a statue carved from marble: eternally lovely but also eternally frozen.

“ _De rien_.”  The young man dismissed the question with a wave of a fine-boned hand; then he turned on his stool to face Girodelle head-on.  “But let’s see if we know each other.  My name is Saint-Just.  And you?”

Girodelle said the first name that popped into his head.  “Bonneville.”

“Ah.  What a shame, I do not think we are acquainted,” Saint-Just mused with a half-mocking tone.  “But I suppose we can remedy that.  What do you do for a living, Bonneville?”  Girodelle was beginning to regret his trip to Paris entirely—he certainly hadn’t intended to get caught in a lie, or even a conversation—yet he couldn’t deny that Saint-Just intrigued him.  Girodelle couldn’t bring himself to get up and walk away.

“Euh. . . I’m a lawyer,” Girodelle finally told the young man.  “But not a very successful one, I’m afraid.”

“Mmm, I see.  That would explain your manner of dress,” mused Saint-Just.

“And just what is wrong with my manner of dress?” Girodelle retorted as his face grew warm again.  He was wearing the plainest clothes he owned, but they suddenly felt excessively formal and out of place in the tavern. . . and Girodelle felt sure the bizarre young man knew it.  _Has he caught on to me already?_ he wondered.  _How does he know?_

But Saint-Just replied, “Oh, nothing is wrong with it; it is merely familiar.  You see, I have some law training myself—my mother’s idea—and most of my associates are lawyers as well.”  The young man smirked again, but conspiratorially this time, as if he and Girodelle were in on the same joke.  “You have to look respectable of course, but not too much so.  It’s a delicate balance.”

Girodelle exhaled in relief and took another swallow of his drink.

“Yes,” he murmured.  “Delicate indeed.”

“Although _sometimes_ ,” Saint-Just went on, tapping a rather long fingernail against the scuffed wooden counter, “something stronger than delicacy is called for.  Wouldn’t you agree?”

Girodelle wasn’t quite sure what the man was talking about, and he wondered what sort of answer Saint-Just expected.  But then, for some reason, Girodelle thought of Lady Oscar in her military uniform, laughing at the men who had come to court her.  Had delicacy cost him her hand?

Saint-Just cleared his throat, so Girodelle stammered, “I believe. . . it depends on the situation.  In love—”

“I am not talking about love!” Saint-Just spat with such venom, Girodelle looked at him in amazement.  The beautiful eyes that had seemed cold moments before were now fiery with passion.  “You fool, can’t you see beyond your own petty feelings?  I am speaking of France, of our liberty!”

Girodelle had had enough.  Oscar had already laughed at him that evening, and he didn’t need this pretty blond stranger to call him a fool on top of it.  He set down his glass hard and threw some money on the bar as he stood.

“Good night,” he growled in Saint-Just’s direction as he stalked past, but the young man grasped at the sleeve of his coat.  Against his better judgment, Girodelle found himself looking down into Saint-Just’s face, where he saw another smirk on his delicate mouth.

But despite the smirk, Saint-Just said softly, “No, sit.  Forgive me for my outburst.  You only reminded me of something that happened long ago.”

“Oh, so you _have_ loved a woman?”  Girodelle’s odd relief at finding some common ground with Saint-Just, no matter how banal, led him to sit down again.  Saint-Just shrugged, but he kept talking.

“Not in the same way you do, I think. . . Louise was my friend.  But in our friendship, we lacked the delicacy that you seem to find so important in love, and her father hated me for it.  He stood in my way politically for a long time—but no more!”  The young man’s fist had been clenched tightly on the counter as he spoke, but now he slowly relaxed it.  “Perhaps you are right, citizen.  Delicacy would have saved me much trouble.  But it hardly matters now.” Saint-Just’s gaze met Girodelle’s, and he smiled—not a smirk but a true smile.  For the first time, a hint of warmth touched his brown eyes.  “Allow yourself to forget your love for tonight, Bonneville.  Let us talk about France instead.”

Surprisingly, it was easy.  Saint-Just had a way with language that entranced Girodelle, and he truly did forget about Oscar’s rejection while he listened to the young man explain the France of his dreams.  The details of it drifted past Girodelle, for it was Saint-Just’s passion that came across most clearly.  The one concept that Girodelle did remember was the value Saint-Just placed on friendship—if only because he didn’t seem like the sort of man who would have many friends.  Yet in Saint-Just’s world, in his France, men would declare their friends publicly and would remain true to them for life.

There was a naïveté about it all to Girodelle, who had seen at Versailles just how false friendship could be, yet he welcomed that innocence, for it tempered Saint-Just’s coolness.  From the fervor with which he spoke, it seemed that Saint-Just had lost his best, his only friend—perhaps the girl Louise—and was determined to carve the corruption out of France until such a thing could never happen again.

As Saint-Just talked, the din around them grew, until Girodelle had to lean close in order to hear his new acquaintance’s voice.  Finally, Saint-Just glared around them at the other patrons before throwing down the money for his single drink, long since untouched.

“Shall we go somewhere else?” he asked with an air of disgust.  “I cannot even think with all this noise.”

“All right.”  Girodelle stood with him, and they made their way out of the bar.  Once out into open air, though, he began to come to his senses and to realize how tired he was.  “Although. . . it is getting late.  I should retire,” he muttered as he smoothed his long hair with his hands.

“Are you tired?” Saint-Just questioned him, perhaps with a hint of pique.  “Or will you lie awake, thinking of _her_?”

“I. . . .”  Girodelle gave a rueful laugh.  “Until now, you had made me forget.”

“Had I?  Well, I am staying nearby,” Saint-Just offered, “if you care to discuss things further.  I would enjoy hearing some of _your_ ideas, as I have done most of the talking.”  His egotistical air softened, just a little, as he smiled at Girodelle.

 _I shouldn’t,_ Girodelle thought, but that smile captivated him.

“Oh, I have no ideas of my own,” he replied.  “But. . . I will gladly listen to more of yours.”  Saint-Just nodded and beckoned Girodelle to follow him, yet the young man kept silent as they walked.  The room he was renting was small and plain, but very clean.  Saint-Just offered Girodelle the single chair, while he himself sat on the edge of the bed.

“What is she like?” Saint-Just asked Girodelle without preamble.  “This woman you love.”

Girodelle almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of such a question.  How could he explain Lady Oscar?  How could anyone?

Finally, he answered, “Slender, blonde. . . some would say cold.  But she is fiery when she is passionate.”  He paused and studied Saint-Just.  “In a way. . . though she is nothing like you, you remind me of her.”  Saint-Just gave him a startled look; then it faded, and he laughed.

“Your mind is so addled with this silly love of yours, everything reminds you of her.”  Saint-Just picked up a book that lay open on his bed and flipped idly though the pages, then held it up in front of Girodelle’s eyes.  “Plato.  Have you read him?”

“Yes, of course,” Girodelle said with an indignation that he regretted when the other man gave him a curious look.

“Oh?”  Saint-Just gazed at Girodelle steadily until the older man flushed and looked away.  “Like you,” Saint-Just went on, “I have read him.  He tried to create an ideal society too, you know, if only in writing.”

Girodelle ventured, “Yes, but his Republic does not seem very much like yours.  Plato had no faith in the common people.”

“Oh, I have no faith in them either,” Saint-Just scoffed.  He leaned back on his left elbow, resting his right hand inside his sky-blue coat.  “But the difference between Plato and Saint-Just is that I have no faith in _anyone_ —and better the masses to rule than the nobles.  Wouldn’t you agree?”  To answer in the affirmative would be treasonous, yet Girodelle almost feared saying no to Saint-Just.  Did he have some weapon within his reach, even though he looked so innocent and young reclining there?

“Well?”  Saint-Just’s finely sculpted lips curved slightly, not quite smirking.  “Speak from your heart.”

Girodelle closed his eyes and sighed, “I suppose I am an idealist, Saint-Just, for my heart is happy with neither solution.  A ruler should be chosen because he is fit to rule, not because of his rank—whether it be high or low.”  As he spoke the words, he imagined a France in which the fittest did rule, and Lady Oscar de Jarjayes was its queen.

“Well said,” murmured Saint-Just.  Girodelle opened his eyes as the other man sat up.  When Saint-Just’s elegant hand slipped from his jacket, it was empty.  Girodelle’s gaze stayed fixed on the younger man as he stood and, stretching, removed his jacket.

“Would you care for something to drink?  I have coffee, although I’m afraid I can’t offer you sugar.”

Girodelle watched the slender figure cross the room to the fireplace, where he stoked the embers to wake them for boiling the water.  Saint-Just’s legs were long and as shapely as a woman’s, and Girodelle made himself turn away to keep from staring.

 _I am too weary, too emotional to be here now,_ he thought.  _I’m not myself. . . ._

“I don’t want to inconvenience you,” he muttered.  “I really should bid you good night.”  A clap of thunder made both men start and turn to the window, where the sound of soft rain rattled the glass.

“Ah, look at that.  Nature has decided the matter for you.”  Saint-Just leaned across the table to pick up a cup that rested near Girodelle’s arm as he ordered, “Take off your jacket and reacquaint yourself with Plato, Citizen Bonneville.  The coffee will only be a few moments.”

Girodelle pretended to read, but his eyes refused to focus on the page.  Was this young man what the other nobles thought was so bad, so ridiculous?  This elegant blond—who was more intelligent and more graceful than anyone else Girodelle knew, save for Lady Oscar—with his dreams of a society based around friendship?  Even if they were the naïve dreams of a man who had no friends, who trusted no one.  Perhaps Saint-Just _was_ a bit ridiculous, then, but Girodelle couldn’t see the harm in his fantasy.

 _Why then did he frighten me?_ Girodelle asked himself.  _If he’s harmless, why did I feel as if he were ready to kill me if I said the wrong thing?  I can’t disdain him as the rest of the nobility would—but I should be wary of him all the same._

“Here.”  Saint-Just interrupted Girodelle’s thoughts by setting a cup of coffee down in front of him; then the young man took the book from Girodelle’s hand and closed it.  He performed this action with surprising gentleness.  Girodelle sipped at his hot, bitter drink as Saint-Just sat again on the edge of the bed.

“You’re young, aren’t you?” Girodelle asked as he studied Saint-Just.  The blond man glanced at him with an expression of faint surprise.

“I am twenty-one.  Why?”

“ _Mon Dieu_.”  Girodelle looked down at his coffee, embarrassed although he wasn’t sure why.  “I thought. . . I am thirty-six.  I didn’t think you were _that_ much—”

Saint-Just shrugged as he interrupted, “You are hardly old.  I am merely very young, as you say.”

“Still. . . I am afraid I will not live long enough to see your ideas put into practice,” Girodelle murmured.  Saint-Just leaned forward to place his cup on the table and sat back again, brown eyes fixed on Girodelle all the while.  The older man swallowed hard under Saint-Just’s gaze.

“I make you nervous,” Saint-Just observed, in the tone of someone studying a captive wild creature.  “Why?”

“You. . . .”  Girodelle felt himself flush as he tried to look away from the narrowed eyes regarding him, and found he could not.  Saint-Just’s lashes were long and dark, as if he’d used kohl on his eyes like a woman.  “You are beautiful,” Girodelle muttered.  “Almost as beautiful as she is.”

Saint-Just had obviously not expected that answer: for the first time that evening, his pale cheeks reddened, and he seemed to have lost some of his composure.

“Oh. . . .  I thought—never mind.”  The young man smiled, a true smile this time that made his delicate lips curve.  “Even though you are in love with a woman. . . you think I am beautiful?”  When Girodelle merely nodded, Saint-Just got up from the bed and moved to stand in front of him.  He gazed down at the older man for a moment then dropped into a crouch before Girodelle, so close that his knees touched Girodelle’s shins.

“Citizen Bonneville,” Saint-Just hissed, “have you ever been with another man?”

“No.  Of. . . of course not,” muttered Girodelle.

“You’ve never even considered it, have you?” asked Saint-Just in a low voice, nearly a whisper.  “You fell in love with a woman because it’s the fashionable thing to do, _n’est-ce pas?_   Because it’s what was expected of you.  But then you find an especially pretty man who reminds you of that woman a little, and since you can’t have her, you think he might make a satisfactory substitution?”

Saint-Just’s licentious words disgusted Girodelle—but not because he found the idea of “being with” the younger man so repulsive.  Instead, Girodelle was offended that Saint-Just assumed he was the sort of man who would use another person in that way, as a mere stand-in for someone he couldn’t have.  _As if anyone could take Oscar’s place!_ Girodelle thought as his eyes narrowed into a glare at the blond crouching in front of him.

“That was hardly my intention in complementing your looks,” he growled.  “You asked a question, and I answered it truthfully, but if that’s how my answer sounded, I take it all back.”

Saint-Just laughed at him.  “That’s just as well—pretty though you may be, you wouldn’t know the first thing about making love to a man.”

Girodelle hardly knew what to think, and he stammered, “Well, do—do you?”  Saint-Just finally stopped his almost mad-sounding laughter and merely smiled up at Girodelle.  _Am I really. . . “pretty”?_ the older man wondered.  He knew he was considered handsome, and many a lady had complimented his wavy, waist-length hair and sea-green eyes.  However, Girodelle had never thought of himself as possessing any sort of feminine beauty, much less that another man could find him attractive.

 ** _Does_** _he find me attractive?_   Girodelle wanted it to be so, and the warmth in his face heightened to realize it.

“Hmn.”  Saint-Just did not answer Girodelle’s question; instead, he leaned up on his toes and forward, then whispered, “If you find me so beautiful, citizen—kiss me.”

Saint-Just spoke the words like a challenge.  Girodelle’s gaze traveled down from the young man’s hard eyes to his mouth, where he was pressing his lips together in a thin line.  Even though Girodelle knew it was wrong, even though he tried to fix his thoughts on his virtuous affection for Lady Oscar, he ached to answer that question.  He wanted Saint-Just, as well as to make the other man want him in return.

 _I’ll never see him again,_ Girodelle thought, _and he doesn’t know my real name.  No one will ever find out._   Although he knew that kissing another man was insanity, the fact that he would remain anonymous was enough to allow him to act.  Girodelle placed his shaking hands on Saint-Just’s shoulders, leaned downward, and touched his lips to that cold mouth.

For an instant, Saint-Just did not respond; then his lips parted beneath Girodelle’s.  Girodelle kissed Saint-Just as he’d kiss a woman, drawing the young man’s bottom lip between his teeth and eliciting a barely-audible moan.  Saint-Just’s hands lifted to Girodelle’s knees, steadying himself before he raised himself higher on his toes and pushed his mouth against Girodelle’s.  The older man felt Saint-Just’s tongue thrust into his mouth, and he clenched his hands over the narrow shoulders in their grasp.  Girodelle wanted the kiss to go on forever, and that desire terrified him so, he pulled away and sat back, breathing heavily.

Saint-Just remained where he was for a moment, crouched and looking up at Girodelle.  He was no longer blushing, and the only color in his pale face came from his lips, reddened from contact with Girodelle’s.  Then Saint-Just rose to his feet and stood by the table, where he took up his coffee and drank again.

“I have some work to finish,” he murmured, without looking at Girodelle.  “My colleague Robespierre asked me to read through a speech of his.  I hope you won’t mind if I finish up.”

“No, of course not.  As soon as the rain stops, I’ll be on my way.”  What else, after all, could Girodelle say after Saint-Just had effectively dismissed him?  He got up from his chair and gestured for Saint-Just to take it, so that he would have better use of the table, then stood by the window with his cup cradled in his hands, staring down into its depths.  When he did allow himself to glance up, Saint-Just had papers, scrawled with writing, spread on the table in front of him.  His head was bent on his long, graceful neck, and strands of his hair fell around his face.

Girodelle wanted him.  He ached to push aside the papers that were taking the other man’s attention away, to take Saint-Just in his arms and kiss him again—not because Saint-Just reminded him of Oscar but because he was beautiful in his own right.  Beautiful, and frightening, and forbidden.

“Listen to this,” Saint-Just murmured, and he began to read fragments of the speech aloud.  Girodelle tried to make himself listen, but the words barely registered with his mind, and Girodelle couldn’t have repeated a single phrase or idea.  All he took from the speech was that this Robespierre was not as good with words as Saint-Just was, and he began to yawn discreetly once he’d finished drinking his coffee.  Finally, Saint-Just looked up at where Girodelle leaned against the window sill, and he smirked.

“You look tired.  If you’d like to lie down for a while, I can wake you when the storm is over.”  Saint-Just gestured toward the bed with one slender hand while he turned back to his work.

“I don’t want to impose,” Girodelle murmured, even as he tried to suppress another yawn.

“You won’t be imposing.  I may be another hour on this speech, and you’ve pretended to listen long enough.”  At Girodelle’s embarrassed protest, Saint-Just chuckled, “Don’t worry, it doesn’t offend me.  Maxime’s writing is not always. . . concise.  That is why he asked for my help.”

Girodelle relented and removed his coat, then sat on the edge of the bed to dispense with his muddy boots.  A little of the mud had dried on the legs of his breeches as well, and Girodelle frowned as he brushed at it.

“Is something the matter?” Saint-Just asked from the table, without looking up.

“I have mud on my clothing.  I don’t want to get your sheets dirty,” Girodelle muttered.  Absorbed in his work, Saint-Just gestured at Girodelle with his hand.

“Take them off.”

“The sheets?”

“Your clothes.  Whatever’s dirty.”  Saint-Just raised his head and lifted one delicate eyebrow at the embarrassed expression on Girodelle’s face.  “You needn’t be so modest.  I promise I won’t look.”

“Oh.”  Flushing, Girodelle removed his pants once he was sure Saint-Just was looking only at the papers before him, then got into the bed in his shirt and undergarments.  Girodelle still didn’t trust the young man fully, and he tried to stay awake by staring at the flickering light of the candle which sat on the table, casting its light over Saint-Just and his work.  However, the small flame blurred and distorted before Girodelle’s gaze, and he closed his eyes for a moment.  When he opened them again, the light had been extinguished.

 _I must have fallen asleep,_ Girodelle thought drowsily.  It took him a moment to realize that Saint-Just was lying on his back in the narrow bed beside him, asleep as well.  Without the candle’s light, Girodelle could hardly see even the outline of Saint-Just’s body, but a dim flicker of lightning from the dying storm illuminated him briefly.  Again, Girodelle was struck with the young man’s beauty, so different from Oscar’s in some ways yet in others exactly the same.  His blond hair spread over his pillow and down to his shoulders, and in the blue-white lightning, Saint-Just’s lips looked as if they were carved from marble.

Girodelle raised himself up on one arm and leaned over the still man, thinking, _He looks like an angel_.  He bent his head, waiting for another flash of lightning to look again, and he felt a wavy tendril of his own hair fall onto Saint-Just’s face.  When the lightning came, fainter than before, it revealed Saint-Just’s lips a scant couple of inches from Girodelle’s.  Girodelle lowered his head and kissed them.

Saint-Just came alive, whether he really slept that lightly or had only been feigning slumber.  One hand clamped over the back of Girodelle’s head, fingers lacing into his long hair; then Saint-Just yanked on the handful of hair and jerked the older man’s head back.  Girodelle drew in his breath and tensed, in case Saint-Just were about to attack him.

But instead Saint-Just forced Girodelle’s head down again and kissed him fiercely, thrusting his tongue up into the older man’s mouth.  Girodelle pressed his chest against Saint-Just’s and returned the kiss with equal fervor.  He trailed his fingers through Saint-Just’s straight hair and stroked his neck, then gripped his shoulders; one of Saint-Just’s slender hands remained entangled in Girodelle’s own hair, and the other pressed against the small of his back.  They kissed until Girodelle’s jaw ached and his lips felt raw.  Finally, he pulled his mouth away from Saint-Just’s and gasped to catch his breath.

“What is your given name?” Saint-Just rasped from below him.  “I should know if we’re going to be kissing like that.”

“Victor,” Girodelle whispered.  “And yours?”

“Antoine.”  

Saint-Just said nothing else, and Girodelle heard only his breathing, ragged at first then slowing.  Girodelle lay back, resting his head on the pillow next to Saint-Just’s, as guilt swept over him.  _I’m sorry, Oscar,_ he thought, though it wasn’t really to Oscar that he apologized.  Oscar, he knew, wouldn’t care.  In fact, she would probably laugh to know that her former fiancé was currently in bed with another man.

Wondering how that other man was feeling, Girodelle slid his hand across the sheet to touch Saint-Just’s arm.

“What is it, Victor Bonneville?”  Saint-Just’s voice sounded sleepy over the false name. . . sleepy, and uninterested in the answer.

“Nothing.”  Girodelle withdrew his hand, resting it at his side, and closed his eyes.  There was one distant growl of thunder; then all was silent.  He couldn’t even hear Saint-Just’s breath anymore.  Girodelle had almost fallen asleep when he felt the tentative brush of fingertips against his hand.  Girodelle turned his hand palm up, curling his fingers around Saint-Just’s, and the younger man’s hand closed over his palm.

The next morning, Girodelle awakened when Saint-Just got out of bed to dress.  Girodelle opened his eyes in time to get a glimpse of the young man’s body—slender as a woman’s and, with its planes and angles, somehow more beautiful—before it was hidden by clothing.  Girodelle sat up and rubbed a hand across his eyes, then gathered up his hair and smoothed it down behind him.

“I must take this speech to Robespierre,” Saint-Just muttered when he saw Girodelle was awake.  The young man shrugged into his sky-blue jacket and began combing the tangles from his blond hair.  “I’m already late.”

“I’m sorry.”  Girodelle climbed out of Saint-Just’s bed and stepped into his breeches.  He glanced at the window and judged by the light streaming in that it was already mid-morning.  “I should have left last night,” Girodelle mumbled as he stepped into his boots.  He watched Saint-Just tying his cravat, then went to the door.  “Thank you for sharing your ideas with me, Antoine.  And. . . _bonne chance_.”  Saint-Just finally looked at him again, but only with the smirk Girodelle had seen so often the night before.

“Yes,” said Saint-Just.  He looked down at the crumpled pages of Robespierre’s speech lying on his table, then gathered them up and tucked them into his jacket.  “I will accept that as genuine good will.”

“What?”  Girodelle stared at the other man, who lifted his brown eyes to look back.  “Of course it is—”

“Yes, of course it is, as much as your name is really Bonneville.”  Saint-Just walked over to the door as his smirk faded.  “I don’t know who you really are, but you couldn’t be anyone but a noble.”

“Saint-Just—” Girodelle began, but the younger man put his fingertips to Girodelle’s lips to silence him.

“No,” said Saint-Just.  “I don’t want to know.  Otherwise I might feel obligated to do something unpleasant to you.”  He took his hand away, leaving Girodelle still staring down at him as he wondered at the pain he felt in his heart.  Then Saint-Just pinned his shoulders against the door with both hands and kissed him, hard.

The young man drew back after that single kiss and hissed, “Now.  Leave.”

Girodelle obeyed.  As he walked away from Saint-Just’s lodging, the streets were wet with the previous night’s rain, and the warmth of the morning sun coaxed a layer of steam from them.  _I’ll never see him again,_ Girodelle thought.  The night before, that thought had spurred Girodelle into kissing Saint-Just; it had been a comfort and a relief.  But now it filled Girodelle with an ache like he had never felt before—not even when he knew that Lady Oscar would never be his wife.

\--

“This is for you, even if I shall become a traitor.”  The words were spoken by the commander of the Royal Guards.  Girodelle.

Hidden by the crowd and the rain, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just watched, his eyes trailing over the elegant, beautiful man: the curls of light brown hair that tumbled to his waist; the sea-green eyes with their flat, even brows and long lashes; the wide mouth with its full lower lip.  Saint-Just remembered the feel of that hair between his fingers, the look of those eyes dilating with desire, the taste of that mouth locked over his.  As Girodelle ordered his men to retreat, as he himself rode away, Saint-Just’s eyes followed him.

Then they flicked to study the woman to whom Girodelle had spoken, the blonde who had stood between the Guards and the delegates at the _États-Généraux_.  The woman for whom Girodelle would commit treason.  The woman he loved.

A noble, of course, just as Girodelle was.  Saint-Just had known it when he first laid eyes on the man, so tense and unhappy there in the tavern.  No matter how he tried to dress in plain clothes, or how he lied about his profession and his name, no aristocrat could hide who he really was.  He had been so easily led too—just a few words, and Saint-Just had drawn him into conversation.  A few more, and he was following Saint-Just home.  Girodelle’s evident loneliness had surprised Saint-Just, but not as much as his intelligence had.  Both had intrigued the young man, as had Girodelle’s beauty, and perhaps they had saved Girodelle’s life.  Saint-Just hadn’t _completely_ committed to killing him when he lured Girodelle to his room, but the thought had certainly crossed his mind.

But then Girodelle had spoken so wisely, behaved so politely. . . looked at him with those eyes the color of jade and called him beautiful.  One kiss from him had undone all of Saint-Just’s scheming, and the commander of the Guards had walked away unscathed.  He had probably forgotten his single, brief dalliance with another man already.  As for Saint-Just, he hadn’t exactly lost his heart, but he did wonder if Girodelle had taken some of his sanity.

But the woman.  Not only was she a noble, she was the famed female commander of the French Guard.  Fortunate, really—it gave Saint-Just two excuses to kill her.  As he turned up his collar and drew away from the crowd, Saint-Just was already making his strategy.  Robespierre wouldn’t approve, of course, but he wouldn’t be surprised either.  And he would never suspect that Saint-Just had murdered Lady Oscar François de Jarjayes out of jealousy.

\--

To be continued


	2. Chapter 2

Girodelle was sure he would never see Saint-Just again.  The world seemed to change so much after their first meeting: the _États-Généraux_ , the fall of the Bastille. . . Oscar’s death.  Girodelle mourned her as he thought she would have wished it, silently acknowledging the place she would always have in his heart, then carrying on with his duties.  The fact that she died firing _on_ the Bastille—fighting with the people—concerned him, however.  Not only was Girodelle concerned; he was also confused.

Girodelle had had issues with the aristocracy before: the boredom he had confessed to Oscar, the occasional pang of guilt for the privilege into which he had been born.  But for Oscar, an idealist’s idealist, to die fighting _against_ everything they were meant to represent as nobles. . . her sacrifice made him question his own general complacency.

He didn’t quite believe what Saint-Just had expressed that night in Paris, that being noble was inherently wrong.  After all, one could no more help being born into privilege than a peasant could help being born into poverty.  Lady Oscar, La Fayette, the Duc d’Orleans had been born into the nobility, and yet they had done so much for the common people, whatever personal reasons they might have had for their actions.  But perhaps standing by, observing injustice and doing nothing about it, _was_ wrong. 

Still, Girodelle couldn’t bring himself to act.  He was loathe to commit treason, of course, but he also feared the unknown.  As lethargic as it was, a noble’s life was all Girodelle had ever known.  Especially with Oscar gone, he had no idea where to start fighting for the people.

One night almost a month after the Bastille—and Lady Oscar—fell, Girodelle lay awake, alone in his bed.  The window of his bedroom was open to combat the heat of the August night, and for a long while, Girodelle watched the drapes shifting in the small breeze the window let into the room.  Their movement was hypnotic, and when one side began moving more violently than the other, Girodelle thought perhaps he had fallen asleep and was dreaming. . . a thought which seemed even more likely when a man hauled himself up into the window and crept into the room.

Girodelle sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.  No, not a dream.  It _was_ a man, wearing a mask. . . and carrying a knife.

As Girodelle stared with widening eyes, before he even thought of opening his mouth, the man growled, “You’re not going to scream, are you?”  Girodelle knew the voice instantly, and he slumped back against his pillows in relief. . . although he knew his relief might be ill-founded.

“Saint-Just,” Girodelle breathed.

The intruder gave him a curt nod, then lifted a slender hand to his face and removed his mask.  In the dimness of his bedroom, Girodelle couldn’t see him very well, but he recognized Saint-Just’s elegant profile when he saw it outlined against the moonlight shining through the window.  Saint-Just slipped the knife back into his coat and lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed.

“How—how did you find me?” asked Girodelle.

Saint-Just chuckled, “I saw you the day that woman commander stopped you from firing on us at the _États-Généraux_.  It was simple enough to find out where you lived once I knew you were the commander of the Royal Guards—Victor Clement de Girodelle.”  Despite his initial laugh, Saint-Just’s voice had a bitter note to it when he spoke Girodelle’s name.  That, and the younger man’s cavalier mention of Lady Oscar, pained Girodelle, and he turned his head aside.

“What are you doing here?” he muttered.  “And why did you choose to come in the middle of the night, through my bedroom window?”

“I’ll answer the second question first,” said Saint-Just.  “My reputation would suffer greatly if I were seen having anything to do with a noble.” Girodelle was both amazed and annoyed at the haughty tone in Saint-Just’s voice.

“Very well.  And you’re here because. . . ?” Girodelle prompted.

“Because. . . I need your help.”  Saint-Just stood and went to the window.  He pulled it shut then closed the drapes too, blocking nearly all of the moon’s light out of the room.  Remembering the knife, Girodelle decided he didn’t feel comfortable sitting in the dark with Saint-Just, and he slid across the bed to his nightstand, where he fumbled to light the candle he kept there.

“You need my help with what?”  Girodelle finally got the candle lit, and its small flame cast a flickering light on Saint-Just’s face.  He had turned to watch Girodelle, who now looked up at the cold, beautiful face gazing upon him.  Saint-Just’s brown eyes reflected the fire of the candle.

“There is a ball next week at Versailles,” Saint-Just said.  “You are invited, correct?”

“Yes,” murmured Girodelle.  “What of it?”

“Are you escorting anyone?”

Girodelle felt his cheeks grow warm at the question, although he wasn’t sure why he felt embarrassed.

“I don’t see what this has to do with—” he began, but he broke off when Saint-Just arched an eyebrow.  Finally, Girodelle admitted in a grumble, “No.  I have not made any arrangements.”

“Good.”  Saint-Just sat down on the bed once more and crossed his shapely legs.  “I have come to ask you to allow a young lady to attend in your company.  She may be introduced as some relation to you—a cousin, or the daughter of a family friend, or whatever you choose, so long as your relationship to her will not be questioned and cannot be easily traced.”

Girodelle folded his arms across his chest and eyed the other man with suspicion.  The effect was somewhat diminished by the fact that Girodelle was sitting up in bed and wearing a nightshirt, and Saint-Just merely smiled at him.

“Why?” Girodelle demanded, trying to sound stern even though his eyes kept drifting to Saint-Just’s lips.  “What are you planning?”

“It will be easier if you don’t know,” replied Saint-Just.  “Trust me, you will not be involved in any way.”  As he stretched out his legs, he murmured, “I wouldn’t even ask for your help, but you’re my only contact within the aristocracy.”

“What incentive do I have for helping you?”

“None at all,” Saint-Just sniffed as he shrugged out of his blue jacket then leaned back on his elbows.  “Except that you’ll be helping your country and her people,” he went on, “those you claim to defend.  And what’s more, you won’t have to lift a finger to do so.”

Trying not to stare at the beautiful man lounging so carelessly on his bed, Girodelle asked, “Who is the young lady you wish me to escort?”

“Again, it will be easier if you do not know.”

Girodelle sighed, “All right.  If that is all I must do, I will help you, because I do believe you have the best interests of France at heart.”  He raised his eyes to Saint-Just’s face and was surprised by the expression of gratitude he saw there.

“Thank you, Girodelle,” the young man murmured.  “As difficult as it may be for you to understand, I do have good intentions.”

“Good intentions for whom?”  Girodelle let his arms drop and toyed with the end of one tendril of hair that had fallen over his shoulder.  “For _all_ the people, or only your Third Estate?”

“ _Someone_ must have good intentions for them, as the aristocracy certainly doesn’t,” Saint-Just retorted.  “Consider your helping me as just the first step of reparations for what your kind has done.”  Girodelle clenched both his jaw and his hands as he leaned forward.

“I will fully admit the atrocity of much of the nobility’s behavior,” he growled, “but _I_ have done nothing of which I am ashamed, and I will not bear the burden of others’ actions!  I’m doing this for _you_ , not to assuage some guilt you imagine I should feel.” Girodelle’s words seemed to have given Saint-Just pause, for he was silent a moment as he looked at the older man.

Finally, Saint-Just murmured, “For me only?  Why?  What are _your_ intentions?”

“I’ll be damned if I know,” muttered Girodelle.  He sat back again and tilted his chin up, stretching his neck as he sighed.  “I thought I’d never see you again, and then here you are climbing into my bedroom.  It seems my intentions for you don’t matter since you’ll do as you please anyhow.”

Saint-Just laughed—not mockingly but with true pleasure; then he said, “It seems you already understand me well, although you’re awfully complacent for a man who doesn’t want me in his bedroom.”  He bent down, and Girodelle realized Saint-Just had slipped his boots off when the young man drew up his legs to kneel on the bed, facing him.

“I might not have been as willing to come to you for help if I didn’t find you so very intriguing. . . and do you still find me beautiful?” Saint-Just whispered.  He leaned forward and put his hands on Girodelle’s legs, gripping his thighs just above his knees through the bed linens.  “Is that why you agreed to help me?”

“Perhaps,” Girodelle breathed.  His legs twitched in the younger man’s grip.  “Saint-Just. . . this is insane.”

Saint-Just arched an eyebrow.  “What is?  Our working together?  Or me being on your bed, and you allowing it?”

“Both.”  Girodelle’s voice both felt and sounded raspy.  He sat up again and grasped Saint-Just’s wrists, intending to push his hands away.  “Saint-Just—Antoine. . . .”  Instead, Girodelle’s hands dropped to cover the younger man’s.  Saint-Just smiled, wide enough to show perfect white teeth between his lips.

“So my intentions for the Third Estate are only the best, but I never said what I intended for _you_ ,” he whispered.  “Since the night we met, I’ve thought of doing terrible things to you.”

“Terrible things?” Girodelle repeated.  Saint-Just’s often-narrowed brown eyes were open wide now, and they glimmered in the candlelight, drawing Girodelle in.  Saint-Just leaned closer, tilting his head slightly, until their lips nearly touched.

“Absolutely _wicked_ things,” he confirmed.  With another movement of his head, Saint-Just’s mouth brushed Girodelle’s; then when Girodelle didn’t resist, the young man kissed him.  The feel of Saint-Just’s mouth on his thrilled Girodelle, particularly because it was the first time the other man had initiated a kiss between them.  Girodelle let Saint-Just’s hands go so he could grip the young man’s shoulders as their lips parted and their tongues brushed together.  Saint-Just made a soft moaning noise into Girodelle’s mouth as he shifted his own hands from the older man’s thighs to his back.  When Saint-Just suddenly tightened his arms around Girodelle and pulled the other man to him, Girodelle gasped.

“Antoine,” he breathed, breaking the kiss, “we shouldn’t. . . .”

“Oh?”  Saint-Just drew his head back without letting Girodelle out of his grasp.  “And why not?  Because it’s insane?”

“Yes,” Girodelle whispered.  The sight of the other man’s lips, flushed and glistening with Girodelle’s own saliva, certainly _did_ instill a particular kind of insanity.  “We. . . we’re both men—and I’m far too old for you.  Besides—I’m a noble—I’m what you. . . you hate. . . .”  His words faded, replaced with short breaths as he became distracted by the heat of Saint-Just’s body against his and the temptation of his lips.

“I tried to hate you,” murmured the younger man.  “ _You_ , specifically.  In fact—the night we met, I brought you home with the notion of killing you.”

“ _What_ —”  Girodelle flinched and tried to push Saint-Just away, but the other man’s arms stayed clamped around him like iron.

“But,” Saint-Just continued as if Girodelle hadn’t interrupted, “you weren’t what I thought you were—what I wanted you to be.  You seduced me, Victor.”  This time, when Girodelle began to protest, Saint-Just didn’t give him the chance even to begin.  “Oh, I know you didn’t intend to—you would probably claim that _I_ seduced _you_.  But those affected manners of the aristocracy, the clumsy lies you told with such earnestness. . . and your intelligence, your empathy. . . _mon Dieu_ , all that drew me in even before I succumbed to the beauty of your face.”

Girodelle’s attempts to extract himself had ceased, and Saint-Just moved even closer to him, until he was straddling the other man’s thighs.  He bent his head and, pulling Girodelle’s hair aside with one hand, began to caress the side of his neck.

“Do you want me to go?” Saint-Just whispered between kisses, his breath tickling Girodelle’s skin.  “Say so, and I’ll leave you.  Not because we’re both men or because you are fifteen years my senior—those two facts only make me want you more.  But if you’re unwilling, I won’t force myself upon you.”

“‘Unwilling,’” Girodelle murmured in a wondering tone.  “If only I could say that I were!”  He dropped his arms to Saint-Just’s waist and clasped it, marveling at both how narrow and how firm it felt.  “But this is wrong. . . .”

“Wrong!” scoffed Saint-Just.  “By whose standards?  You sound like Robespierre, always going on about _virtue_.  He wants me too, you know, but he denies it.  In fact, he denies himself everything—men _or_ women, wine, any sort of pleasure at all except for the same kind of self-righteousness you’re showing now.  They’ve begun to call him ‘the Incorruptible’—is that what you want to be, too?”

Girodelle rather thought he did; it would be such a fitting tribute to Lady Oscar, that he never touched another woman—or man—again.  But she would have called it what Saint-Just did, self-righteousness, and she hadn’t wanted his devotion when she was alive.  She certainly wouldn’t have wanted it after her death, too.

Then he thought about this Maximilien Robespierre, the man Saint-Just had sometimes called “Maxime” with obvious familiarity.  _He wants me too,_ Saint-Just claimed, _but he denies it._

_Does he deny it?_ Girodelle wondered.  _Does he always?  Or does Antoine sit in **his** lap sometimes, and kiss his neck like this, and—_

He reached up to grasp a fistful of Saint-Just’s long hair and pulled the younger man’s head back enough to kiss him, hard.  Saint-Just gave an appreciative moan and thrust his tongue repeatedly into Girodelle’s mouth in a manner clearly meant to be suggestive.

“You’re jealous, aren’t you?” Saint-Just hissed when he broke the kiss.  “Thinking of me with another man makes you so wild?”

“I’m not jealous,” Girodelle muttered.  “And you said he denied himself of—of _you_.”  He narrowed his eyes to glare at Saint-Just through his lashes, and the other man tilted his head back and laughed, exposing his pale throat.

“Ah, you _are_ jealous.  Those exquisite eyes of yours are greener than ever!”  Saint-Just looked at him again, now with a full grin, and taunted, “Now you know how I felt when I saw that woman—the one who spurned you.  No, Robespierre has never touched me—and she never touched _you_ , did she?  But I hated her all the same.  And now she’s _dead_.”  His brown eyes, which could look so beautiful, glinted in the candlelight in a way that was almost demonic.

“ _Damn_ you,” snarled Girodelle.  The affront to Lady Oscar motivated him to do what mere propriety could not, and he shoved Saint-Just with such force, he dislodged the younger man from his lap and threw him down on his back on the bed.  Girodelle got up and even backed a step away from the bedside as he glared at the startled man staring back up at him.

“Yes, she’s dead, and she died fighting for _you_!”  Aware that he was nearly shouting, Girodelle forced himself to modulate his voice out of fear that a servant would overhear him.  “Fighting _with_ the people of France you claim to have such interest in—so don’t you dare speak ill of her.  If your Robespierre so values virtue, he should have looked to her for assistance, not to a viper like you!”

“You _do_ love her,” Saint-Just breathed.  He wasn’t smiling now as he continued to stare at Girodelle.  “I thought your saying so was an exaggeration, a concession to what you were taught to believe.  But no. . . you truly love her.”  His bewildered response confounded Girodelle, who had expected either anger or mockery.

“I did love her,” Girodelle replied.  “But she never loved me, and, as you reminded me—she is dead.  What cause should you have to be jealous?  You don’t want my _love_ , you want my complicity, perhaps my body if I can believe you—and I don’t think I can.  If you wanted me to love you, you—you would be different,” he finished with a weak shrug.  The words sounded flat even to his own ears, but they explained his meaning well enough.  The look on Saint-Just’s elegant face changed, no longer bewildered but set, not quite angry.  The young man pushed himself up by his arms then bent to reach for his boots.

“I cannot be anything other than what I am,” he declared as he pulled the boots on, “and because of what I am, there’s no hope of you ever loving me.  Why should I waste time striving for the unattainable?  And as for wanting you—I do, but I said I wouldn’t force myself on you.  So you see, viper or not, I still honor my word.”

Girodelle looked away and muttered, “I apologize for calling you that.  I was angry—I _am_ angry, but I shouldn’t stoop to petty insults.”

“No, you should not.  Your disgust with me is far more effective at shaming me.”  Saint-Just didn’t _look_ ashamed when Girodelle finally turned back to him; the blond man face had regained some of its usual arrogance as he slipped back into his jacket.  Girodelle might have weakened if Saint-Just had shown any signs of remorse, but now he found it easier to send the younger man away.

“Please go,” he said.  “It would be hard to explain your presence if anyone should find you here.”

“Of course.  How awkward for the commander of the Royal Guards to be caught with a man in his room,” Saint-Just murmured.  “Are you still open to the arrangement we made?”

“I always honor _my_ word, too,” Girodelle told him.

“Very well.  Then the girl will call on you here next week, on the evening of the ball.”  Saint-Just went to the window then turned to look at Girodelle, standing beside the night stand.  “Extinguish the candle, please.”  After Girodelle obeyed, Saint-Just pushed aside the drapes and opened the window once more.  “Give me a hand out?”

“Very well,” Girodelle sighed.  He went to Saint-Just, then took his hand to steady the young man as he climbed out of the window, finding footholds on the trellis outside.  The thought occurred to Girodelle that it might be better for all involved if he gave Saint-Just a firm push, but he was much more tempted to pull the blond man back inside to his bed.

_I still want him,_ Girodelle admitted silently.  _His body **and** his love. . . but he’s right.  Neither of us can be other than what we are, so I’ll never be anything to him besides the means to an end—whether in bed or in a revolution._

“ _Au revoir_ , Citizen Girodelle,” Saint-Just murmured as Girodelle dropped his hand.  He leaned back in the window just enough to brush his lips against Girodelle’s, then disappeared past the sill.

Girodelle’s mouth burned with Saint-Just’s touch as he closed the drapes over the window and returned to bed.  _God knows what I’m doing helping him,_ Girodelle thought as he pulled the bed linens up to his chin and tried to ignore Saint-Just’s scent that still clung to them.  _But this will be the end of it.  I’ll escort this girl of his—and I won’t see **him** again._   Yet despite his best intentions, Girodelle still longed to kiss the marble-pale lips and to hold the slender body of the young man who had just left him.

\--

To be continued


	3. Chapter 3

Over the next week, Girodelle began to hope that it had all been a dream—or, at the least, that the young lady he was to escort wouldn’t show up.  In fact, he had almost convinced himself that nothing would happen by the time the day of the ball arrived, but he was sorely disappointed: as he was dressing for the evening, one of his servants announced that a young lady had come to call upon him—unaccompanied by any chaperone, the servant made sure to point out with a scandalized look.  Such a thing rarely happened around Girodelle.

After he had dismissed the servant, Girodelle bit back a sigh of irritation as he regarded his reflection in the mirror.  So Saint-Just hadn’t come, and Girodelle was obligated to go through with escorting a complete stranger to Versailles, to do God knew what.  He combed out his long hair a final time and arranged it over his shoulders before turning to leave his dressing room and descend to the parlor into which the lady had been shown.

_Maybe I can get rid of her,_ Girodelle mused.  _I’ll tell her it’s all a mistake, or that Saint-Just contacted me and called it off. . . ._   He still hadn’t hit upon a concrete plan before nearing the parlor, and he decided that he should at least gain the advantage of observing his guest before she saw him.  Girodelle slipped into the room via a small side door usually employed by his servants for discreet entrances and exits.

The lady was resting on a settee, her back to Girodelle as she faced the larger double doors that led into the room from the foyer.  She had a slender, graceful neck about which she wore a black choker, and her dark blonde hair was drawn up high on the back of her head, where it fell in curls to the nape of her neck.  The girl sat perfectly still, as if she were a statue.  Girodelle shut the door loudly behind him, getting a perverse pleasure from seeing his guest start in surprise.

“ _Bonsoir, mademois—merde!_ ” Girodelle yelped, swearing as the girl stood and turned around.  He was the one who got the real surprise, for she wasn’t a girl at all.  She was Saint-Just.  In a dress.  For an instant, Saint-Just looked embarrassed; then his face cleared and he gave Girodelle a cool smile.

“ _Bonsoir_ yourself,” he returned in a light voice, indistinguishable from a woman’s.

“What—you’re the lady I’m to escort?” was all Girodelle could think of to say.  He had pressed back against the hidden door when Saint-Just turned around, and now he managed a few steps forward, toward the settee that still stood between them.

“Yes.  I don’t trust anyone to act as my agent, so this is the simplest way.”  Saint-Just gestured to his attire and asked, “What do you think?”

The dress _was_ quite beautiful.  It was in the style known as _robe a l’anglaise_ , with a tight bodice and full skirts in the same shade of blue as the jacket Saint-Just usually wore.  A scarf draped Saint-Just’s shoulders, presumably to hide his flat chest, and a black ribbon bound up his hair.  With his youthful, pretty face, he looked indistinguishable from a woman.

“Very convincing,” Girodelle murmured.  “But what is it _for_?  Why is it so important that you attend this ball, that you’ll dress as a woman?”  Saint-Just only smirked, and Girodelle sighed, “Right, it is easier if I don’t know.”  Saint-Just walked around the settee and came toward him, dress rustling.

“Correct,” he declared.  “You are learning.  Now, have you decided whom I am to be?  Your cousin?”

“No,” muttered Girodelle as Saint-Just stopped close beside him.  The older man found it hard to think clearly with his guest so near, particularly since the delicate scent of lavender indicated that Saint-Just had gone so far as to wear perfume.  Girodelle continued, “If anyone grew suspicious, they could investigate such a claim too easily.  Instead, I will introduce you as the daughter of my mother’s girlhood friend.  My mother is dead, and her loss pained my father so much, he refuses to speak of her.  No one will press the issue at the risk of offending him.”

“Hmm, then I suppose some silly noble sensibilities have their use,” Saint-Just mused.  Girodelle had no difficulty turning away from him after that.  _My father’s love for my mother, a “silly noble sensibility”?_ Girodelle thought with a scowl as he crossed the room to the double doors.  _I wonder if Antoine has a heart at all. . . ._

As if he hadn’t noticed Girodelle’s movement, Saint-Just asked, “And have you chosen a name for me to use?”

“No.  I believe you will respond more naturally if you choose for yourself,” Girodelle told him.

“That’s a very good point—you seem to be taking this venture seriously.”  Saint-Just’s skirts rustled as he moved, but Girodelle still did not look at him.  Saint-Just continued, “All right, you may call me Florelle.”

“And your family name?”

“Robinot.”

Finally, Girodelle glanced over his shoulder at the other man to point out, “That was a quick decision.  Have you done this before?”

“No, trust me,” Saint-Just assured him—though of course, trusting him was the last thing Girodelle wanted to do.  “I have used the name Florelle as an alias before, in publishing some of my writings.  And Robinot, that was my mother’s family name.”

“I see.”  Girodelle took a deep breath and steeled himself before turning to face Saint-Just fully.  “Well, Mademoiselle Robinot, shall we depart?”  Saint-Just sauntered over to him and extended his hand for Girodelle to place on his arm.

“Lead the way, monsieur,” he said.

\--

The evening started off well enough.  Girodelle grew a bit tired of telling the “mother’s friend’s daughter” tale, but everyone seemed to believe it; while Saint-Just garnered much attention, no one seemed suspicious.  However, two other matters did make Girodelle uncomfortable: the way the other men ogled Saint-Just, and the fact that he seemed to be looking for someone.

“Shall we dance?” Girodelle asked after making several rounds of introductions.  He wanted to stave off the other men who kept clustering around them. . . and if he were being honest with himself, he really did want to dance with his beautiful companion.

“Not yet,” murmured Saint-Just as he continued to scan the ballroom.  “I don’t want to attract too much attention.”

“Too late for that,” Girodelle muttered.  Even though they were standing in relative seclusion by a wall, Girodelle felt like the gaze of every man in the room was on Saint-Just.

“Oh?  Are you jealous that your little friend from the provinces is drawing so much notice?”  Saint-Just laid a delicate hand on Girodelle’s arm and looked up at him.  His lips were pursed in an adoring smile, but the look in his brown eyes was mischievous.

“You should have found a real girl to play this part,” said Girodelle, ignoring the question.  “Someone is going to guess that you’re a man.

“No, they won’t.  They won’t get close enough.”  Saint-Just pressed closer to Girodelle’s side and slid his hand down the older man’s arm.  “I’m hopelessly devoted to my dear friend, after all.”

Girodelle’s breath caught as he felt Saint-Just’s slender hand close over his for a moment.  He turned to face Saint-Just and put his hand on the younger man’s waist to draw him closer, but then something behind Girodelle caught Saint-Just’s gaze.  As his brown eyes widened, Girodelle knew that Saint-Just had found his quarry.  Girodelle turned his head to follow Saint-Just’s glance. . . and found himself regarding, from some distance, a man with the largest nose he had ever seen.

“You’re looking for _him_?” Girodelle blurted out.  Saint-Just had dropped his hand and was studying the man, long-lashed eyes narrowed.

“Perhaps.  Who is he?”

Girodelle had to think for a moment before he remembered, “He’s Michel Lepeletier—the Marquis de Saint-Fargeau.”

“Ah.”  The corner of Saint-Just’s mouth turned up in a smile as he raised his eyes to Girodelle once more.  “ _Mon_ _cher_ Victor, I have changed my mind—I’d like to dance after all.”

Girodelle discovered the reason for Saint-Just’s fickleness when the younger man managed to end their dance directly beside Lepeletier, where he struck up an animated conversation with the marquis. Girodelle remained silent for the most part as he tried to puzzle out Saint-Just’s intentions.  He saw nothing at all physically attractive about Lepeletier, even once he got past the nose: the man’s eyes were too large for the rest of his face, and his forehead swept backward abruptly to a wig set too far back on his head.

Yet Lepeletier was amiable enough, intelligent and not apathetic to the plight of the Third Estate, it seemed.  If Saint-Just had a sinister motive, Girodelle couldn’t understand why he would choose Lepeletier as the victim of his scheming, rather than one of the many more obnoxious nobles present.  And Girodelle certainly couldn’t believe that Saint-Just’s flirtation was more than an act. . . although if Saint-Just really _were_ trying to seduce Lepeletier, he was doing a pretty damn fine job of it.

Girodelle was about to excuse himself and find someone more interested in _his_ company than that of large-nosed marquises, when Saint-Just announced that he was tired and walked off, leaving Girodelle to give a more proper goodbye to Lepeletier.  Afterward, he hurried after Saint-Just, scowling.

“That was very impolite!” Girodelle whispered as he caught up to the other man.  “You should have excused yourself properly.”

Saint-Just glared at him and hissed, “ _You_ try being polite in these shoes!  I feel as if I’m walking on knives.”  Girodelle tried to mask a smile; not only did he find the situation amusing, he was also pleased to see Saint-Just showing his genuine self for the first time that evening.  That self might be disagreeable, but it was the one Girodelle liked.

“Come sit down and rest your feet,” Girodelle offered, holding out his arm.  Saint-Just hesitated, glancing aside, but then he took the arm and allowed Girodelle to lead him out of the ballroom to a smaller sitting room.  There, Saint-Just lowered himself onto a plush settee with relief visible on his face.

“I have a new respect for women,” he muttered as he flexed his ankles.  Girodelle smiled and knelt in front of him.

“I hope mademoiselle won’t think me too forward if I offer my services,” he teased.  Saint-Just made a face at him, playfully, like a child would. . . and then he smiled and extended his right foot.  Even his ankle seemed feminine emerging from beneath the ruffles of his skirt, but the smile was what really made Girodelle’s heart beat faster as he began to massage Saint-Just’s slender ankle with both hands.  Saint-Just was looking at him with affection and pleasure, enjoying his company—something Girodelle hadn’t expected from the evening.

As Girodelle drew his fingers over the tendons in Saint-Just’s ankle, he glanced up to see the young man’s eyes drop closed with contentment.  Girodelle bit the edge of his lower lip and slowly moved his hand up the back of Saint-Just’s calf.  The faintest of smiles crossed Saint-Just’s lips, and he extended his leg farther outward.  _If he were really a woman, I’d never dream of doing this,_ Girodelle thought, even as his hand drifted farther upward.  He brushed the back of Saint-Just’s knee with his fingertips, and the young man exhaled with a faint moan that stirred Girodelle’s blood.

But then the sound of the door behind him opening caused Girodelle to withdraw his hand in alarm.  When he looked back over his shoulder, Lepeletier was standing in the doorway, staring at them.  Girodelle flushed and got to his feet, but Lepeletier was even more flustered than he was.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.  “I did not mean to intrude—”

“You’re not intruding at all,” Girodelle assured him.  “Mademoiselle Robinot’s feet are troubling her, and I was just attempting to ease her discomfort.”

“I—I see.”  Lepeletier cleared his throat, the bridge of his enormous nose turning bright red with embarrassment.  “I was wondering if I might—have a word with mademoiselle, in private.”  Girodelle glanced down at Saint-Just, who gave him the faintest nod of agreement.  From the almost mischievous flash he saw in the younger man’s eyes, Girodelle assumed that everything was going according to Saint-Just’s plan.  Although he knew it would be highly indecorous to leave an actual young woman alone with a man she had only just met, Girodelle had no doubts that Saint-Just could take care of himself.  _And anyway,_ he thought, _he’d probably force me to leave if I refused._

“Of course, monsieur,” Girodelle answered Lepeletier; then he bowed and made his exit into the short hallway outside the sitting room.  His hand trembled as he pulled the ornate door almost closed, and he was startled to realize that he was jealous.  Jealous of that marquis, alone with his Antoine.

_“My” Antoine,_ Girodelle thought with a bitter smile.  _He’s not **anyone’s** Antoine._   He stilled the door just before it closed and put his eye to the thin crack that was left.  However, he could see nothing except Lepeletier’s back as he and Saint-Just talked.  Deciding that listening would be more effective than watching, Girodelle cupped his hands together and pressed them to the door, leaning his head against them so he could hear what was being said inside.

“. . . a pity,” Lepeletier was saying when Girodelle began to listen.  “I would have liked for you to come visit me at my estate—with Monsieur Girodelle, of course.”

“I’m very sorry, monsieur,” Saint-Just replied, as sweetly as any young woman would, “but with my mother ill, I simply cannot.”

“I know, _ma chérie_ , please don’t worry about it,” urged Lepeletier.  “Some other time, perhaps.”  The two remained silent for such a long time, Girodelle thought the conversation might be over, especially when he heard the clack of Lepeletier’s shoes approaching the door.  Girodelle was about to abandon his post when Saint-Just’s voice, speaking softly and lightly, made him pause.

“Monsieur?”

“Yes, mademoiselle?” Lepeletier responded.

“Perhaps I could see you later tonight.”  As he heard Saint-Just speak those words, Girodelle felt as if his cheekbones had caught on fire.

“Later tonight?” repeated the marquis.  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Monsieur Girodelle told me that he wishes to leave now, but I feel it’s a shame to end the evening so soon,” Saint-Just murmured, so quietly that Girodelle had to strain to hear him.  “Perhaps I could return alone after Victor has retired?  Around two o’clock?”

“I— _ma chérie_ , I. . . I don’t know,” stammered Lepeletier.  His shaking voice sounded as flustered as Girodelle felt.

“I will be outside in the garden at two, monsieur,” Saint-Just told him with the same firmness he had often used when speaking to Girodelle.  “I hope you will not disappoint me.”

Girodelle knew from Saint-Just’s tone of finality that the conversation was really over that time.  He moved away from the door quickly and seated himself in a decorative chair which looked—and felt, hard against his backside—as if were affronted at actually being sat upon.  When Girodelle caught sight of himself in the mirror hanging across the hall from him, he saw that his cheeks were pale, not flushed as he thought they must be.  Pale even though he was furious.

Lepeletier exited the sitting room alone, still blushing.  He didn’t even glace at Girodelle, probably was not even aware of the younger man’s presence.  Instead, Lepeletier stalked swiftly down the hallway and disappeared back into the ballroom.  A moment later, Saint-Just emerged from the room, still moving as lightly and delicately as a woman would.  He saw Girodelle, smiled, and came to him.

“All right,” Saint-Just announced.  “We can leave now.”

Girodelle considered refusing, of staying at the ball all night if necessary just to frustrate Saint-Just’s plans, but the thought of having to see Lepeletier’s face again was unbearable.  He stood and held his arm out to Saint-Just without looking at him, either.  If Saint-Just noticed Girodelle’s attitude, he said nothing.  He only rested his gloved hand on Girodelle’s arm and allowed himself to be led to their carriage.

\--

Neither Saint-Just nor Girodelle spoke until Girodelle’s coachman pulled up in front of the chateau.  He opened the carriage door for Girodelle, who stepped down then held up his hand to help Saint-Just out of the carriage, as if he really were a woman.  Girodelle withdrew his hand immediately afterward, however, and did not look at the other man as they went to the chateau’s door, held open for them by another servant.

“Mademoiselle Robinot and I will be in the parlor,” Girodelle told the servant as they entered.  “Please see that we are not disturbed.  In fact, I won’t need anything for the rest of the evening, so you all may retire.”  He received a surprised look along with the expected “yes sir”; after all, Girodelle’s servants weren’t used to him entertaining young ladies in private.  At the moment, though, Girodelle didn’t care what any of them thought of him.  He was too angry with Saint-Just to be concerned with anything else.

Girodelle stalked through his dimly lit foyer to the parlor, leaving Saint-Just to keep up in his awkward shoes.  Once secluded inside, Saint-Just dropped onto the settee with a murmur of pain and began to remove them from his feet.  Girodelle stood by the fireplace, one hand on the mantel as he gazed at down at Saint-Just without really seeing him.

“You may retire as well if you wish,” Saint-Just told Girodelle, pulling on the fingers of his gloves to remove them.  “I won’t need further assistance from you.”

“I imagine not,” Girodelle spat.  Saint-Just glanced up at him with an expression of mild incredulity.

“What _is_ the matter with you?” he asked.  “I thought you were too well-bred to be this sullen.”

Girodelle curled his fingers over the edge of the mantle and growled, “You used me.”

“You knew I was going to,” Saint-Just pointed out.

“Yes, but. . . but not like this.”  A carven grape leaf dug sharp edges into Girodelle’s fingers, and he welcomed the pain as a distraction from his mental anguish.  “Dressing as a girl to spy on the nobility—that I can understand.  But how does seducing a marquis serve your ideal?”  Saint-Just’s brown eyes widened in a flicker of dark lashes; then he laughed aloud.

“You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?  And you call _me_ a spy!”  Saint-Just shook his head in mirth, and a loose curl of golden hair danced at the side of his face.

“What are you going to do when you meet him?” Girodelle demanded.  “I can’t imagine you’ll get very far before he suspects—”

“Oh, I won’t need to get _far_ ,” Saint-Just interrupted as he slipped his hand into the folds of his skirt.  “Close enough for penetration, but not the kind _you_ think of, you dirty-minded soldier.”  He smirked and produced his knife from a hidden pocket of his dress, then held it up as he asked, “You really think the worst of me, don’t you?”  A disgusting sense of relief washed over Girodelle before he could feel properly horrified.

“You—you mean to kill him!” he cried.

“Mm.”  The noise Saint-Just made was neither confirmation nor denial.  The young man looked past Girodelle to check the clock on the mantle over the fireplace.  “Just an hour before I’ll need to start back.  May I borrow one of your horses?”

“I won’t let you,” muttered Girodelle.

Saint-Just arched an eyebrow in that infuriating way he had and asked, “You’d rather I steal a horse?”

“I won’t let you kill him,” Girodelle clarified without acknowledging what he assumed was Saint-Just’s attempt at humor.  “I may not be fond of him, but Lepeletier is a good man.”  Saint-Just only shrugged.

“We’ll see,” the young man replied.  “If he _is_ a good man, he won’t come to meet me, and he won’t die.  But he didn’t refuse me very firmly—I think he’ll come.”

“But what good will it do your cause to kill him?” Girodelle persisted.  “Lepeletier is hardly the worst specimen you’ll find among the nobility.  He’s sympathetic to the Third Estate, and—”

“That’s exactly why I chose him,” Saint-Just interrupted.  “Robespierre wants to convene a National Assembly, and with powerful men like Lepeletier around, it’s much more likely to happen.”

“But why wouldn’t you _want_ that?” protested Girodelle.  “The National Convention would give the Third Estate the voice you say it deserves.”

“Robespierre is a great man,” Saint-Just said as his brown eyes cooled and narrowed with impatience, “but he is an idealist.  A dreamer, really.  Talking will never solve anything, and what’s worse, it will waste precious time.”

“You don’t know that.  Are you so certain in this conviction that you’ll lower yourself to the level of a common criminal?”

“Don’t worry about me, Girodelle.”  Saint-Just’s voice had lost its cool playfulness, and there was a rough edge to it now that Girodelle had not heard before.  “My conscience can handle it.”

“I don’t think you _have_ a conscience,” Girodelle breathed.

Saint-Just did not reply; he only bent to put his shoes back on.  While he was occupied, Girodelle paced to the small back door of the room and locked it with a key he kept in his pocket.  The ornate main doors to the parlor had no key, so all Girodelle could do was move to stand before them, blocking them with his body.  Saint-Just finished with his shoes and stood, the knife still in his hand.  He cocked his head and regarded Girodelle silently a moment before he spoke.

“If that’s what you believe, perhaps you should get out of my way.”

“I’m not going to let you kill him,” said Girodelle.  There was no expression on Saint-Just’s face as he moved a few feet closer.

“You’d die for a man you hardly know?” Saint-Just asked him.

“And you’d kill me to get to him?” returned Girodelle.  When Saint-Just gave no reply, Girodelle groaned, as much to himself as to the other man, “ _Mon Dieu_ , I’ve been such a fool!  To think I believed what you told me of friendship the night that we met. . . .  You wouldn’t last a day in your own utopia, if this is how you reward your friends!”

“Be quiet!” Saint-Just snarled, and finally, his horrible blank expression twisted into anger.  “You’re being a fool right now, Girodelle.  Get out of my way!”

“No.  I’ve already done enough for you.”  Girodelle pressed his back to the doors and watched as Saint-Just stared at him, incredulity warring with fury on his face.  _Even if I shouted for my servants, he could kill me before they got here,_ Girodelle thought, _and he would do it too, knowing that he would be arrested either way once I cried for help._   His only chance of survival was to wait, and hope Saint-Just wouldn’t test his resolve.

“ _Move,_ ” Saint-Just hissed.  “You are correct—I used you.  You’re nothing but another aristo, as naïve and foolish as the rest of them, and I won’t hesitate to remove you now that I’m finished with you.”

It was what Girodelle had suspected all along, and what he had come to believe more and more strongly as the night progressed.  Yet hearing Saint-Just say the words— _you’re nothing, I’m finished with you_ —broke something inside of Girodelle, something even Lady Oscar had never reached.

“No,” Girodelle whispered.  His eyes had begun to ache, and when he blinked them hard, they overflowed.  Two tears fell down his cheeks to splash onto the marble tiles below their feet.

“Damn you,” Saint-Just breathed; then his voice rose to a near shriek.  “Damn you to _hell!_ ”  He lunged forward, and Girodelle was certain that the knife was going right into his chest.  But instead, Saint-Just plunged it into the face of the ornate door to Girodelle’s left and turned away, shoulders heaving.

Girodelle’s entire body felt as if it were dissolving, and he trembled as he watched Saint-Just go to the fireplace and lean heavily on the mantel, his back to the room.  Girodelle turned his head to look at the knife embedded in the dark wood of his door, just inches from his cheek.  The knife had, of all things, a heart engraved on the handle, which Girodelle grasped to free the blade from where it had lodged within the wood.

Saint-Just did not move when Girodelle opened the door and left the parlor, taking the knife with him.  He didn’t think Saint-Just would go after Lepeletier now; something in the young man’s cry had sounded broken, too.  However, if Girodelle was wrong, at least Saint-Just would have to find another weapon before he could bring harm to anyone else.

Girodelle was glad his servants had retired as walked through the chateau to the garden in back.  He didn’t care whether Saint-Just borrowed—or stole—a horse, or anything else from his house, for that matter.  He only wanted to be left alone.  In the garden, Girodelle sank down to rest on the edge of an opulent fountain, trying to clear his head of everything save the feel of its cool mist on his face.

_Did he really think I would be that complacent to his desires?_ Girodelle wondered.  _Just because we kissed. . . just because I’m a naïve, foolish man who thought Antoine was my friend.  A fool who thought that friendship and kisses meant something._   His thoughts somehow blurred into, _I’ll never see him again.  He’s probably already run away, and I’ll never see him again._

\--

To be continued


	4. Chapter 4

An hour passed, an hour of Girodelle sitting motionless and miserable at the side of his fountain, where he looked up at the black sky studded with white stars.  When a movement caught the corner of his eye, he turned to see Saint-Just emerging from the garden doors of the chateau, still wearing the dress but barefoot now, with his hair loose and the rouge and powder washed from his face.  Girodelle watched his feet move over the sharp gravel that covered the ground, seeming to feel no pain, as the young man drifted toward him.

“I will leave if you wish,” Saint-Just said as he walked, “but I want my knife back.  It is too late for me to meet Lepeletier now, so you can return it to me.”

“Stay until morning,” Girodelle replied in a dull voice, still staring at Saint-Just’s feet as they came to a stop a yard away from him.  “Then I will give you your knife and lend you a horse.  And some other clothes.”

“You don’t trust me with a knife,” observed Saint-Just, “but you believe I will return your horse and clothes to you?”

“I don’t care if you return them or not.  And I don’t care if you take your knife back—here.”  Girodelle tossed it onto the ground at Saint-Just’s feet.  “I only thought you wouldn’t want to ride all the way back to Paris at this late hour, in a dress.”

Saint-Just dropped to the ground in front of Girodelle to pick up his knife.  In anyone else, the motion might have been a collapse, a deflation. . . but Saint-Just only drifted downward.  Girodelle was forced to look into his dark eyes instead of at his feet when the younger man moved into his line of sight.

“After this evening, you still care for my comfort?” Saint-Just murmured.  Girodelle didn’t answer him.  He was too tired, too confused.  Girodelle had believed Saint-Just would already be halfway back to Paris by now, not out there at Girodelle’s feet looking up at him with a half-smile of defeat on his pretty mouth.

“All right,” said Saint-Just.  “I’ll do it your way—yours and Robespierre’s.  I’ll use words instead of this.”  He held up the knife between his slender fingers before concealing it once more in the folds of his dress.  “We’ll have Robespierre’s National Assembly, all three estates, and we’ll _talk._   Only. . . .”  He bowed his head and clenched his hands in his skirts as he muttered,  “Only don’t look at me like that anymore.”

Hope—still confused, but hope all the same—filtered through Girodelle’s exhaustion and apathy.

“Like what?” he whispered.

“Like I disgust you.”

“I’m more disgusted at myself,” Girodelle admitted.  He sighed and closed his eyes, bringing his fingers to his forehead to massage his temples.  “If you had killed Lepeletier, I would be to blame for helping you.  You’re right, I _am_ a naïve fool.  Maybe we all are, we nobles.  Or most of us anyway,” he added, thinking of Oscar.  “You are so much younger than I, but you had a lot to teach me, Saint-Just, about how not to be so naïve.”

“Victor, if I had killed Lepeletier, it would have been in spite of you.  Not because of you.”  After saying that, Saint-Just fell silent for so long, Girodelle opened his eyes once more.  Saint-Just was staring down into the folds of his dress in his lap.  They looked silvery grey, not blue, in the starlight.

Finally, the young man spoke again, “If I had another chance, I couldn’t do it now.  Robespierre wants to put the accused nobles on trial—I can do that.  I can pass them off to Sanson the executioner and let _him_ kill them.  But I can’t do it myself any more.  You would have taken my knife for one of them, and now I’d see your face instead of theirs if I tried.”  Saint-Just gave a tired little laugh and a shrug of his shoulders.  “You’ve ruined me, Victor.  I killed something beautiful in you, and in return, you’ve ruined me.”

“Something beautiful. . . ?”  Girodelle shifted on the side of the fountain, stood on legs shaky from being in one position too long, then dropped to his knees on the ground beside Saint-Just.  “Tell me what you mean.”

Saint-Just flicked his eyes up to meet the older man’s gaze and said, “Your naïveté, or maybe I should say, your innocence.  As old as you are, you were still an innocent in many ways, in the ways that matter.  You believed everything you said. . . and then you believed what I said, too.”

“It wasn’t innocence, it was _ignorance_ ,” Girodelle muttered.  “You never lied to me.  In fact, I thought _you_ were the naïve one, the night we met, when you told me of your utopia.  I was stupid to take it seriously, to believe that _you_ believed in it.  Now, I see. . . it is an ideal, something that could no more be real than—well, than the marriage I was supposed to make with Lady Oscar.  I loved the idea of her, and what she represented, and that probably would have made for a far happier marriage than most arranged at Versailles.  But that was just a dream too.”

Girodelle realized that he had been talking for several minutes, looking up at the fountain as he spoke, and he glanced at Saint-Just with the expectation that the other man would be inattentive, yawning or smirking.  But the long-lashed brown eyes were still fixed on Girodelle, and they looked so sad, it startled him.  Did Saint-Just pity him?  Or was the expression just another mask or another false name?  The young man had so many layers, Girodelle wondered who the real Saint-Just was. . . if there even _was_ a “real” Saint-Just.  Perhaps he was nothing but illusion, through and through.

“You’ve shown me a lot about the real world,” Girodelle told Saint-Just, whoever he was, “and I’m wiser for it.  I should thank you for that.”

“Hmph.  Gracious to the end.  You _are_ an ideal, Victor Clement de Girodelle,” Saint-Just declared.  His eyes didn’t look quite so sad as he studied the older man, then went on, “You won’t believe me, but when we were dancing. . . I was glad that I was with you.  And then when my feet were aching and you sat before me and rubbed my ankles and looked at me as if I were the most precious thing in the world—for a moment, I forgot everything else.  What you are, and what I am, and what I had come there to do, I forgot it all.”  Girodelle stared at him, still unsure of what to believe, and Saint-Just sighed.

“But never mind.  I have remembered it now, and I swear to you, I’ll do everything in my power to bring us to the National Assembly.”

“Saint-Just. . . .”  Girodelle leaned forward to cover Saint-Just’s slender hands with his own.  “Thank you.  Perhaps Robespierre is right, and it will be enough.”

“He’ll wonder why I changed my mind.”  Saint-Just lifted one of Girodelle’s hands and looked at it as if he had never seen a human hand before.  “And I’ll tell him, ‘A beautiful noble made love to me.’”  He laughed suddenly and laced his fingers through Girodelle’s.  “Then I’d have Robespierre’s demise on that conscience you think I don’t have.  Dead of shock, poor Maxime!  No, I won’t tell.”

“We’re going to ruin our clothes sitting in the dirt,” Girodelle murmured, trying to think of that instead of the tangle of desire, affection, and guilt he felt.  He stood and pulled Saint-Just up alongside him, still holding his hand.  Saint-Just winced as his weight shifted onto his sore feet.

“Shall I carry you, mademoiselle?” Girodelle teased, earning him a playful glare from his companion.

As they went back inside, Girodelle looked around to be sure his servants really had retired for the evening.  All seemed to be clear, so he took Saint-Just up to his own chambers, deciding there was less chance of anyone finding him there.  Besides, desire was beginning to win out over even Girodelle’s well-bred guilt over wanting another man.

“I see why you have be careful of your servants,” Saint-Just remarked as he sat down in a chair across from Girodelle’s bed and stretched his feet out before him.  “You would be hard-pressed to explain why you’re taking a rather disheveled lady into your bedroom.”

“Better they think you’re a lady than know that you’re a man,” Girodelle murmured as he poured water from a pitcher into the basin on his vanity, then dipped a cloth into it.  He knelt before Saint-Just and gently wiped the dirt off his feet, noticing that blisters had formed on both of Saint-Just’s smallest toes, and a cut on one heel had bled.  Ridiculously, it pained Girodelle to see Saint-Just hurt.

“How is that?” Girodelle asked after he had finished.  “Better?”

“Yes.”  Saint-Just tilted his head back with a deep sigh and groaned, “ _Mon Dieu,_ I’ll never wear this disguise again.”

“ _Quel dommage_.  You made a lovely woman.”  Girodelle let go of Saint-Just’s foot and sat back, resting on his folded legs.  Saint-Just turned his head so he could cast an imperious glance down at Girodelle.

“I didn’t tell you to stop attending to me, you know,” he pointed out.

“You’re very demanding,” Girodelle informed him.  “If you _were_ a woman, I’d feel sorry for the man who married you.”  Saint-Just laughed and stretched out his leg, tapping Girodelle’s thigh with his foot.

“I blame my mother—a more demanding woman you’ll never meet.”

Girodelle closed his hand over Saint-Just’s slender, bare foot and held it against his thigh as he murmured, “She must be very beautiful.”

“Not in the least,” retorted Saint-Just, “although my sisters are quite lovely.  I’ve been told the elder of the two, Louise, favors me.  In fact, when I see myself in the mirror, wearing this, I can almost believe I am she.”

“I can’t imagine you having a family.”  Girodelle slowly stroked the cool skin on the top of Saint-Just’s foot, trying and failing to picture the young man in a domestic setting.

“I often pretend that I don’t,” Saint-Just said with a smirk.  “I don’t like them very much, except for my youngest sister, Marie.  Louise is too pretentious, and my mother. . . .”  He made an expressive face.

“What about your father?”

“Dead,” announced Saint-Just.  “I hardly knew him.  I spent my earliest years with my great-uncle, so I was not well-acquainted with either my parents or my sisters for quite a while.”  Girodelle regarded the delicate foot beneath his fingertips, then gently set it on the floor once more and stood.

As he turned to his window, overlooking the dark garden, Girodelle asked, “Do you love them?”  He wanted to know if Saint-Just was capable of loving anyone, at all.

“What an odd question.  And here I thought I was boring you with my personal life.”  Girodelle heard the rustle of skirts as Saint-Just rose as well, but he didn’t turn to look.  “I loved my great-uncle dearly, and I would give my very soul for my Marie.  I suppose I love Louise and even my mother, as well—you _can_ love someone without liking him or her, you know.”

“Oh yes,” said Girodelle, “I know.”

“Could you help me undress?” Saint-Just asked after a moment.  “Infernal dress—only a woman would consider it fashionable to fasten it in the back, where it’s impossible to reach.”

As Girodelle turned to assist him, Saint-Just removed the black choker he wore and tossed it on Girodelle’s vanity.  Girodelle moved behind him and started unfastening the dress, whose pleats tapered inward down Saint-Just’s narrow back and accented his trim waist.  The young man still smelled faintly of lavender, and his scent and the warmth of his flesh beneath the dress made Girodelle’s fingers tremble.  Finally, though, the dress was unfastened, and Saint-Just slipped his arms free of the sleeves and let the garment fall to the ground.  He was wearing a petticoat under it, and he stepped out of that as well.

“At last,” he muttered as he scooped up the dress and draped it over the chair, now clad only in a delicate chemise.  “I hope I didn’t tear the dress anywhere as I must return it—it belongs to the wife of one of my men.”  A faint smile crossed his lips as he smoothed the blue skirts out.  “At least they’re all sufficiently afraid of me that they did not ask questions about who would be wearing it.”

Girodelle, however, was gazing at the soft, white chemise Saint-Just still wore.  It fell to the younger man’s knees but was light and thin, and when Saint-Just moved, it clung to his thighs.

“Is. . . that the wife’s too?” Girodelle mumbled.

“No.”  Saint-Just looked at him, brown eyes sparkling a bit as he smiled.  “It’s not the sort of thing one can borrow, so I had to give Marie the money to buy it and send it to me.  I’m afraid the poor thing thinks it’s a tasteless gift for some woman.  When I see her in person next, I’ll have to explain.”

Girodelle’s eyes widened.  “You’d tell your sister about—”

“Oh, I can tell Marie anything, and she won’t breathe a word.  She’s a good girl.”  Saint-Just moved closer to Girodelle, and his voice dropped to a murmur.  “I told her about you.”

“What about me?”  Girodelle’s hand moved, as if on its own, to brush the fabric covering the taut muscle of Saint-Just’s outer thigh.  Saint-Just pressed his leg against Girodelle’s hand then abruptly leaned into him, resting his chin on Girodelle’s shoulder. 

“I told her that I met a nobleman who was pretending to be a mere lawyer, and that we talked about Plato.  And. . . .”  Saint-Just lifted his head again, but only to put his mouth against Girodelle’s ear.  “I told her that this nobleman was more beautiful than any woman, with hair like silk and eyes like emeralds.”

Girodelle tried to speak but could not, and his hand clenched over Saint-Just’s thigh.

“I didn’t tell Marie that you kissed me,” Saint-Just went on, in as sensual a whisper as before, “and I didn’t tell her your name, even though I knew it by then—so you need not worry that she will reveal your secret, Commander Girodelle.”

“I wasn’t worried about that,” Girodelle managed to say.  “You said she wouldn’t repeat anything you told her.  I believe you.”

Saint-Just drew his head back enough to look into Girodelle’s eyes, studying him.

“Do you really believe me?” he asked.  “Do you trust me?”  Girodelle searched the brown eyes under their fringe of lashes like black lace, then sighed.

“To be honest with you, I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Girodelle replied, “or whom to trust.  And right now, I am too weary to care.  But I believe my identity is safe with you and your sister.”

“And do you believe your _life_ is safe in my hands, Girodelle?” Saint-Just persisted.  The question made Girodelle nervous, even when asked by a slender unarmed man wearing a woman’s chemise.  And yet, strangely enough, he was able to answer yes, honestly.

“You had multiple opportunities to kill me, and you did not.”  Girodelle even was able to conjure a small smile.  “So I believe I am safe enough with you.”

“Mmn.”  Saint-Just pressed close to him again, putting one arm around Girodelle’s neck and placing the other hand on the small of his back.  He nuzzled the older man’s long hair back over one shoulder then caressed his neck, open-mouthed.  Girodelle heard himself moan, as if from far away, and he tilted his head back.

  
“Then,” Saint-Just whispered, “if you trust me. . . do you want me to stay with you tonight?  Or shall I take another room?”

“You—you shouldn’t. . . take another room,” Girodelle gasped.  “Too dangerous—servants might find you. . . .”

“I see.  So I am to share your chamber.”  Saint-Just rubbed his body up against Girodelle’s, pressing the thigh that wasn’t in Girodelle’s hand between his legs instead.  “And what about your bed?  Am I to share that too?”  His lips moved over Girodelle’s throat.

“I don’t think that’s a. . . a good idea,” Girodelle forced himself to say.  It took a great effort for him to step back from Saint-Just and lift his hands to the young man’s shoulders to maintain the distance between them.  Saint-Just’s brown eyes widened slightly; then he nodded with a little jerk of his chin.

“You’re still angry at me, aren’t you?  Even though you’re so polite, and you hide it so well.”  He pulled away, slipping out of Girodelle’s hands like wax suddenly turned liquid by a close flame.  Girodelle watched Saint-Just turn his back and go to stand in front of the vanity, head slightly inclined and hands clenched at his sides.

“I wish I _were_ angry with you, because it would be better for both of us,” Girodelle muttered.  He hesitated, torn between what he wanted to do and what he _should_ do, but then he went to Saint-Just and trapped him about the waist in his arms, from behind.  Girodelle pressed his cheek to Saint-Just’s hair and whispered, “But I’m not angry, only weak—so weak that I’ll want to make love to you if you’re in my bed.”

Girodelle was soon immensely grateful for his weakness, because it gave him the first glimpse he’d ever seen of vulnerability in Saint-Just: after Girodelle’s confession, the younger man turned and wrapped his arms around Girodelle’s neck, hiding his face against his shoulder.

“What makes you think that I don’t _want_ you to make love to me?” Saint-Just murmured.  Girodelle held him another moment then put his hand to Saint-Just’s chin and tilted the young man’s head back to look into his eyes—eyes that were so tired, they seemed as dark-ringed as if he wore kohl.

“You’re exhausted, Antoine,” whispered Girodelle.  “You need to sleep, not further tire yourself by satisfying my desire for you.”

“How poetic you make it sound.”  A faint smile flickered over Saint-Just’s pale mouth.  “How about I make a deal with you: I will rest tonight, and promise not to tempt you, if you will let me share your bed—and if _you_ promise to use me to your satisfaction in the morning?”

“Hmph, by saying that, you’re already breaking your promise not to tempt me,” Girodelle retorted, “but all right.  Only keep that chemise on, at least.”  He hazarded a caress on Saint-Just’s forehead before letting him go.

By the time Girodelle had undressed down to his shirt, Saint-Just was in his bed, lying beneath the sheets and watching him.  Girodelle got into bed beside him with some self-consciousness over sharing that particular bed for the first time.  He remained sitting up for a moment as he looked down at his strange guest and Saint-Just looked back, unsmiling but not cold.  Finally, Saint-Just let his eyes drop closed, and Girodelle lay down beside him, though without touching him.  He wished to hold Saint-Just in his arms while they slept, but he didn’t think the younger man would allow it.

Despite his anxiety, Girodelle was almost asleep himself when Saint-Just murmured, “He said he has a daughter.”

“Who does?” Girodelle queried drowsily.

“Lepeletier.  He adores her.”

Girodelle dragged his eyes open once more.  Saint-Just had raised himself up on one elbow and was gazing down at Girodelle, an intent look in his brown eyes. 

“That’s. . . that’s nice,” Girodelle mumbled, bemused.

“I’m glad now that I didn’t kill him.”  Saint-Just leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Girodelle’s.  Startled and sleepy as he was, and despite his admonition that the younger man not tempt him, Girodelle’s lips parted, and Saint-Just kissed him deeply before lying back on his pillow once more, a little closer to Girodelle’s side.

 _Other nobles have daughters too,_ Girodelle thought.  Once, someone had tried to murder Lady Oscar’s father, caring not at all that General Jarjayes had a daughter.

But then, Saint-Just whispered, “Thank you for stopping me, Victor,” and Girodelle thought, _Other nobles have daughters, but that wouldn’t have mattered to Lepeletier’s girl if her papa died tonight_.  He put out his arm to encircle Saint-Just’s shoulders, and the young man curled inward against him.

“Good night, Antoine,” Girodelle murmured.  He fell asleep and soon dreamed that the young man in his arms told Marie he was in love.

\--

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real Michel Lepeletier later joined the Jacobins (Robespierre and Saint-Just’s political faction) and was a member of the Constituent Assembly and the Committee for Public Instruction. He was murdered in a cafe by a former member of the royal bodyguard, the day before Louis XVI’s execution. Lepeletier’s daughter became a royalist who hated her father for his part in the Revolution.


End file.
